FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT PROPRIETARY TRADING - PAGE 4

LONDON/MOSCOW (Reuters) - Morgan Stanley has sold the majority of its global physical oil trading operations to Russian state-run oil major Rosneft , becoming the latest Wall Street firm to dispose of a major part of its commodity business. The deal represents a bold move into the U.S. market by Russia's top oil producer, which is headed by Igor Sechin, a powerful ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Russian state owns almost 70 percent of Rosneft. The deal includes more than 100 traders and shipping schedulers in London, New York and Singapore, over $1 billion worth of oil, and the bank's 49 percent stake in tanker company Heidmar.

(Fixes spelling in paragraph 5 to Lehman) By Saikat Chatterjee and Umesh Desai HONG KONG, June 12 (Reuters) - Efforts to make the global financial system safer could be making Asia more - not less - vulnerable to any credit market shocks, leaving bond traders worried that a sharp selloff since late May could turn into a rout. Low global interest rates have made it easier than ever to sell new bonds denominated in dollars, euros or yen, resulting in a boom in issuance that has made Asia and its companies ever more dependent on debt.

By Jeanine Prezioso NEW YORK, July 24 (Reuters) - Just as Wall Street's commodity titans face intensifying pressure over their trading operations, nimble rivals are stepping up efforts to chip away at their bedrock business of financing the world's raw materials industry. Minutes before senators in Washington began questioning why the biggest U.S. banks were straying so deeply into the murky world of commodities, privately owned merchant trading group Freepoint Commodities announced on Tuesday it had completed its first deal to finance oil and gas output.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - JPMorgan Chief Executive Jamie Dimon will tell lawmakers that the bank's recent multibillion-dollar trading loss occurred because poorly managed traders embarked in January on a misguided hedging strategy they did not fully understand. His written testimony prepared for a hearing on Wednesday gives a few more details about what went wrong, and what the nation's largest bank by assets plans to do about it. Dimon does not, however, give an update on whether the losses have grown beyond last month's $2 billion estimate.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Facebook's weak stock market debut has a potential silver lining for the social media giant - some short sellers may have been scared off. About 8.1 percent of the 421 million shares in the initial public offering were sold short as of May 31, about two weeks after its trading debut, according to a Reuters analysis of exchange data. That percentage is lower than for Pandora Media Inc, LinkedIn Corp, Angie's List Inc and Groupon Inc - half of the other Internet companies that went public in the past year.

A $2 billion loss can produce a moment of humility even in a fabled master of American banking and international finance. Jamie Dimon, formerly known as the King of Wall Street, was a little less than his normally fighting self when he got to the Senate Banking Committee last Wednesday. He even admitted he'd been "dead wrong" when he tried to blow off news of JPMorgan Chase's colossal screw-up earlier this year. Or, at least, the people he'd relied on were dead wrong. (The surest sign of a chief executive who doesn't need to be one is a tendency to pass the buck to subordinates.)

By Jonathan Leff NEW YORK, Dec 15 (Reuters) - As a historic oil and gas boom transforms the U.S. energy sector, Wall Street is losing the battle to remain the partner of choice for energy producers and major consumers seeking to protect themselves against volatile prices. In the thriving Texas Permian oil patch and beyond, banks are being edged out by a handful of the world's biggest corporations including BP Plc, Cargill and Koch Industries. With Wall Street hamstrung by growing regulatory restrictions, a recently finalized ban on proprietary trading and increased capital requirements, these corporate behemoths are leveraging their robust balance sheets and savvy global trading desks to capture as much as a quarter of the global multibillion-dollar market for hedging commodity prices.

* Dimon had been leading critic of new rules * Trading losses make it harder for Dimon to play this role * Wall Street critics say losses show need for reform * Fed under scrutiny for JPM's stress test review By Dave Clarke WASHINGTON, May 11 (Reuters) - Wall Street may have lost its most potent spokesman against Washington reforms. JPMorgan Chase & Co Chief Executive Jamie Dimon has parlayed his bank's reputation as a white knight during the financial crisis into a position as the champion of a beleaguered industry fighting against excessive post-crisis regulation.